How does the weather affect broadband ?

CXC3000CXC3000 Posts: 10,258
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Apparently, the weather (amongst other factors), can effect broadband service.

Can someone tell me how this can happen ? - in the last few days, I've had intermittent service on Orange. I've rang them and they say there's no problem.

Obviously we've had quite bad weather in the last week or so, and I'm wondering if this is the cause :confused:

Comments

  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 7,207
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    Poled lines swinging in the breeze affecting joints. Water getting in to joints. Electrical storms inducing crackles and bangs.
  • CXC3000CXC3000 Posts: 10,258
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    Poled lines swinging in the breeze affecting joints. Water getting in to joints. Electrical storms inducing crackles and bangs.

    Lol !

    Thanks, BH :)
  • newda898newda898 Posts: 5,464
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    You can always try putting a hoover onto the speaker of your landline phone. That should suck out any dust and noise on the line ;)
  • _ben_ben Posts: 5,758
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    Poled lines swinging in the breeze affecting joints. Water getting in to joints. Electrical storms inducing crackles and bangs.

    In addition to these effects, moisture or rain in the air will increase the capacitance of the line. Undersea mains cables use high voltage DC because AC suffers from high losses due to capacitance, and that's only at 50Hz - ADSL uses frequencies up to 30MHz so is proportionally affected much more. I don't have any data on whether this is significant compared with the other effects though.
  • thenetworkbabethenetworkbabe Posts: 45,554
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    CXC3000 wrote: »
    Apparently, the weather (amongst other factors), can effect broadband service.

    Can someone tell me how this can happen ? - in the last few days, I've had intermittent service on Orange. I've rang them and they say there's no problem.

    Obviously we've had quite bad weather in the last week or so, and I'm wondering if this is the cause :confused:

    To rain (and mist/fog) add


    Thunderstorms - tonight and last night - my error seconds went from 3 in 3 weeks to 188. Loss of signals from 0 to 21. All three error totals soared. If your system reads that as a problem line it will reconnect you probably at a lower speed. If you lose power in a storm mine has a nasty habit of looking for the highest noise margin possible and halves the speed to get it. If it does go to a slower speed it takes ages to readjust back if indeed it does. If there is lighning around and your noise margin isn't that good the thing may disconnect when it sees some - mine picks up anything within 10 miles and has registered some 60 miles away.

    Last july a bolt hit a phoneline a mile away blowing the nearest house's electrics and router and phone. 4 weeks later BT worked out that the reason a lot of locals internet connections were disconnecting simultaneously in multiples of 15 minutes was that the exchange was also damaged and a card with 32 people on it needed fixing. See if anyone else has the same problem just in case that helps identify it.
  • CXC3000CXC3000 Posts: 10,258
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    Thanks 'thenetworkbabe' (and the rest) :)
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 15
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    i did quite a few line quality checks while i was with orange on speedtest.net. most of the time i got a (D) or worse sometimes a(F) . I always had about 10% packet loss. got my mac code and went to sky. orange said i would only get the same speeds.my download speed improved slightly the upload was a lot better .my line quality is now an (A) with zero packet loss4505704.png
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